Why The Opposition To Gay Marriage Is Ridiculous
by Kasai-Kama
Summary: This isn't anything like the stories I usually write. I did this for school actually. If gays/gay marriage offends you then this might offend you as well. It basically shows my view on the subject of GLBT people. I thought I'd post this while I'm working on my other stories because I don't want to sit here with nothing uploaded. After this, it'll be purely fanfics & poetry.


_Why The Opposition To Gay Marriage Is__Ridiculous_

There are many individuals and groups that oppose gay, lesbian, and transgender (GLT) people, as well as marriages. They give reasons for this such as religion and the threatening of family. The truth is, they are just prejudiced people. There is no legitimate reason to deny a gay, lesbian, or transgender couple rights of any kind, including marriage. In the book, "Gay Marriage, " Lauri Friedman said, "There are over 1,000 legal rights and benefits granted to federally recognized married couples that are denied to gay and lesbian couples who cannot get married." (page 69) Aren't we all guaranteed equal rights? Or are some people just more equal than others?

One reason given for the biased view is that it "threatens the family." One blogger explained this quite well in the post titled, "Why do people/homophobics care if gays get married?" The quote was, "If I were a new born baby, I would rather have two gay, same-sex parents who loved me and stayed together in a loving marriage than parents who hated each other and got divorced parents or a single parent only." Coming from a family where my mother has been divorced twice, I may be biased in saying this, but I completely agree.

This is not a federal issue, and the rights of a person should not be defined by who they love. Roman Espajo, a contributor to the book, "Transgender People" said, "This is not an issue that should be the subject of federal legislation." (page 62) Lisa Polyak conveyed a similar view when she said, "It's sad to me that anyone would think that it's ok to put the rights of a minority to a popular vote." (Maryland Governor Signs Bill Legalizing Gay Marriage)This is definitely true. The federal government shouldn't be in charge of this. Marriage should be the choice of the individuals in the relationship and no one else's.

Many political disputes have come up over this controversial issue. Many who support gay marriage do not act upon it in politics because they do not want to start an uproar. But when everyone starts thinking more about what's right and less about what people won't agree to, we might actually be able to get something done in this country for once. It has been said that there will always be discrimination; it is only the type that is discriminated against that changes. To emphasize this, Le Markee quoted Martin Luther King Jr. in a way that would relate to the "flavor of the month," if you will. He said, "I have a dream that people will one day live in a world where they will not be judged by the color of the couple, but by the content of their love." What he's basically saying is, we still have violence, discrimination, and hatred. The only difference is that instead of against African people, it's against homosexuals.

Some people think that being gay is a choice. The truth is, being gay is as much your choice as the color of hair or skin you were born with. You can die your hair or get a tan, but you will always have been born with those same colors. You cannot change that fact. These people have everyday challenges that straight individuals don't have to deal with. Why would someone choose these problems over having a normal life? A few of these challenges are violence, job and housing discrimination, harsh words, social pressures, emotional challenges, self-hatred, religious confusion, and political frustration. Everyday millions of people call something "gay" which they think is stupid, strange, boring, or something else with a negative denotation. Why is someone's lifestyle choice now a derogatory term? Because it is socially accepted. This is not as simple as just saying, "I'm not gay," and suddenly it's true. Transgender people have even more to deal with than gays do, at times. Where are they supposed to use public restrooms? A transgender male who identifies himself as female may feel uncomfortable in a men's restroom, but if he were to use a women's restroom, what about the women there? This is one of the many questions employers have to consider. To make things easier they just don't hire them. Does not being able to get a job because no one wants to deal with your issues seem fair to you?

Religious leaders and conservatives are also a factor that prevents these rights from being granted. In the Bible, god has set marriage as a holy union between a man and woman that lasts forever, or so they say. But how many of those marriages actually end in death instead of divorce? For women under the age of 20, it's about 30%. If this was a true statement, wouldn't that percentage be zero? To avoid the conflict, some states have granted a "domestic partnership" between same-sex couples. But this is NOT marriage. There are still many rights denied to these couples and the process is much more complicated and drawn out. The reason for this process is to discourage it from actually being carried out. Religion itself does not prohibit gay marriage; it is only those who choose to interpret it that way because of their own bigotry and fear. And since America promises religious freedom, if your religion does not say anything against gay marriage, what's to stop you? After all, you aren't marrying the religious leaders, are you? No, but that doesn't stop people from discriminating.

Fortunately, all hope is not lost. There are programs that exist that are trying to reverse the damage done to the gay community and to help them move forward. Ashley Smith writes, "However, gay rights organizations have existed for decades- fighting in Washington and on the local level for an end to legalized discrimination in employment and housing, the right to marry and serve in the military, and other areas." (Battle Rages on for Transgender Rights ) She's right. Organizations such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which runs the Transgender Civil Rights Project, are helping the gay community both legally and locally. Other programs include the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) , the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Rights Movement (LGBT) and many others. Ashley Smith says, "Today, some 40% of people in the U.S. live in an area where there's some form of legal protection for transgender people." Although they do different things, they all basically have the same goal and the very one I'm trying to achieve by writing this: to make sure "equal rights" means for everyone.

In short, the gay community and its supporters have many hardships that they have faced, and definitely have many more to come. However, with help, hopefully they can achieve social and political equality, just as women and African Americans have strived to do, and achieved, in the past. There really isn't any reason to deny anyone their rights, regardless of their race, gender, creed, religion, or sexual orientation. In "Homosexuality" Cynthia Bily wrote, "The ex-gay movement may be the signal that invention has begun to outlive its usefulness, that sexuality, profoundly mysterious and irrational, will not be contained by our categories, that it is time to find reasons other than medical science to insist that people ought to be able to love whom they love." (page 47) The truth has been spoken. Love is love, regardless of the gender. It is not a choice, nor a disease, nor a mental disturbance. Love is not a federal issue, it is a personal one. Maybe one day, the government will learn and agree on that.


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